House Reckoning: A Joe DeMarco Thriller

by Mike Lawson

  Yes, the good he had done and would do in the future far outweighed a youthful mistake and his inability to get out from under that bastard Taliaferro. Carmine Taliaferro had been the devil, and even from the grave he exerted an unwelcome influence on Quinn’s life, but it was now an influence that was tolerable.

  He was not going to let Gino DeMarco’s son ruin his life.

  Hanley emailed DeMarco’s photo to John Braddock, assigned a couple of men to park outside the building where Quinn and his wife lived, and then checked in by phone with the cops he had watching DeMarco’s relatives. Nobody had seen the damn guy.

  Hanley didn’t know exactly what was going on with DeMarco. He believed Quinn’s story, that Quinn had made some sort of rookie mistake and that DeMarco was trying to use it to ruin Quinn. Quinn’s story rang true. He suspected, however, that Quinn hadn’t told him and Grimes everything—that there was a whole lot more going on with DeMarco—but it didn’t really matter, not to him or Grimes.

  Hanley didn’t know what Quinn had done for Grimes. He and Grimes had been partners for four years and spent ten or twelve hours a day together, but they weren’t friends. In fact, Hanley wasn’t sure Grimes had any friends. He was one of those people who stayed totally inside himself. At any rate, he knew Quinn had done something for Grimes, something huge, because Grimes was just as loyal to the man as he was—and Hanley would do anything for Brian Quinn.

  When Hanley got back from Iraq, he was kind of fucked-up. No, that wasn’t right. He was totally fucked-up. He’d been a New York cop for five years before he went overseas with the Army Reserve, and he’d seen all the violence and mayhem the Big Apple had to offer. He’d been in gunfights, he’d seen a score of dead bodies, he’d ended up in the emergency room twice as a result of tussling with assholes so high on drugs they thought they were supermen. But Iraq was different. For one thing, you could never relax; it wasn’t like being a cop where you could go home after the end of your shift. You just never knew when the crazies were going to blow you up or when some guy you thought was an ally might decide to shoot you.

  The other thing was he’d never seen people blown up before. He’d seen rotting corpses, dead babies in plastic bags lying in Dumpsters, guys’ heads turned to red mush by shotguns—but he’d never seen detached arms and legs and scorched body parts splattered all over the inside of a personnel carrier. The worst thing he saw was one of his buddies, a guy he’d been close to, walking ahead of him one day when an IED went off. His buddy was literally blown in half. The top half of him looked normal—his face oddly enough actually looked peaceful, wearing the expression he’d been wearing right before the blast—but below his waist there was nothing left but a slimy trail of blood and entrails. That had really messed up Hanley; it messed him up for months.

  He didn’t know how he got assigned as Quinn’s driver and bodyguard, but he was really glad that he was given the job. He just hadn’t been ready to go back out on patrol when he got back from that insane, pointless war. He was afraid he just might lose it and start shooting people. Fortunately, when he was interviewed by the department’s psychiatrists after he returned from Iraq, he didn’t say anything about the PTSD and he tested normal. He knew a bad psych eval could have messed up his career and he might have been put behind a desk, which was the last thing he wanted. Luckily, somebody in personnel made the decision to assign him to the commissioner’s security detail, and they probably chose him because he looked good on paper: an Iraq War vet with a bunch of medals, an experienced cop with commendations, a guy who could shoot and who was strong and would most likely throw his own body in front of Quinn if it ever came to that.

  At first, and just like he’d expected, Quinn didn’t have much to say to him. He was aloof and curt, and got pissed if he had to repeat an order. He ignored Hanley most of the time as he sat in the back of the car talking on his phone or reading something as he went from meeting to meeting. Basically, it was just like the army: Quinn was an officer and Hanley was a grunt. After a while, though, he loosened up and they’d talk, particularly in the evening, when Quinn was pretty much finished for the day and on his way home.

  One night, after Quinn had had a couple of drinks at some party, he asked Hanley about his family and Hanley told him he had a wife, a girl he’d know since grade school, and two kids, a boy and a girl. Then for some reason, probably because it was weighing so heavily on his mind, he told Quinn his son had just been diagnosed with a rare cancer. He said they didn’t know what kind of treatment his boy was going to need or how curable the disease was, but he and his wife had an appointment in two weeks where they’d learn more. He concluded with: “I mean, two fuckin’ weeks? You’d think they’d move faster than that.” He wished immediately that he hadn’t said fuck and knew he was saying a whole lot of shit that Quinn wasn’t interested in hearing.

  “Who’s his doctor?” Quinn asked.

  “Some Indian guy at Beth Israel. Or maybe he’s Pakistani. I don’t know. He has a long name I can’t pronounce. But he seems like a smart guy.”

  “Hmm,” Quinn said, and Hanley figured that meant Quinn had probably heard enough about Hanley’s problems, and when Quinn pulled out his cell phone, he was certain he had. Quinn dialed a number. “Bill, it’s Brian Quinn. I’m fine, how are you? Look, I’d like you to do me a favor. One of my guys has a sick kid, cancer, and I’d like you to take a look at him for me. Thanks, Bill, I really appreciate it. I don’t know. Hang on. Hanley, what number can your wife be reached at?”

  Hanley rattled off the number, unable to believe what Quinn was doing, and Quinn repeated it to Bill, whoever the hell Bill was.

  After he and Bill chatted a bit more, Quinn hung up and said, “That was Dr. William Layman, who’s possibly the best oncologist in this city. He was my mother-in-law’s oncologist and thanks to him, she lived until she was eighty-seven. Someone from Bill’s office will call your wife tomorrow and make an appointment for your son.”

  “Jeez, boss, I . . . I don’t know what to say.” Hanley realized he was crying and hoped Quinn didn’t notice.

  “You don’t have to say anything. Just get your kid in to see him tomorrow.”

  In the end, his boy ended up down in Houston and they hooked him up with some super cancer doctor down there doing cutting-edge stuff and his son was now cancer-free. And Hanley never saw a bill. His insurance handled the medical stuff but he never even saw a bill from when his wife and daughter had to stay in Houston for six weeks while they were treating his son.

  Hanley would do anything for Brian Quinn.

  27

  DeMarco entered the St. Marks Hotel carrying a small duffle bag. He was wearing a blue baseball cap decorated with a Nike swoosh, a lightweight dark jacket, blue jeans, and a dark blue T-shirt. His Ninja outfit—he’d be one with the night. He’d also stopped shaving the day he made up his mind to kill Brian Quinn.

  DeMarco had a heavy beard and normally shaved every day. If he didn’t, he didn’t look sexy like those actors and male models who had a perpetual three-day beard—he just looked like a guy who needed a shave. In four days, he’d look like a bum. A beard, a hat, and sunglasses, however, were the best he could do for a disguise.

  He started toward the front desk to see if the clerk had two packages for him when he heard, “Joe.”

  He turned to the speaker. He’d recognized the voice. It was Marie. Goddamnit, what was she doing here?

  She looked incredible. It had been years since he’d last seen her, and he’d expected that she would have put on some weight because her mother had put on weight as she’d aged. But Marie hadn’t. If anything, she’d lost a few pounds and her cheekbones were like knife blades. Her hair was shorter than she’d worn it when she was married to him and it perfectly framed her face. Her body was as flawless as it had always been, and she was wearing a dress that clung to every curve she had.

  One of DeMarco’s recurring fantasies was running into Marie and Danny on the street one day. In his fantas
y, Danny was fat and bald. Marie was fat, too, and she’d have a slight mustache and wobbly skin under her chin. His fantasy was not to be. Marie and his cousin were still two of the best-looking people DeMarco knew. Even though she was almost forty, she just took his breath away.

  The thing about Marie was that she was the sexiest woman he’d ever known. There are some women, for whatever reason, who just ooze sex appeal and it wasn’t just a matter of their appearance. Like Amelia Sherman. Most people would probably consider her better-looking than DeMarco’s ex-wife—DeMarco doubted that Marie would have been voted Miss Georgia—yet Marie was more desirable than Amelia Sherman. Marie had an air of wantonness about her, a sexual energy, an animal heat. Whatever the hell it was, you knew, just looking at her, that she’d be incredible in bed—and she was. DeMarco had known almost from the day he met her that she was vain and self-centered—but none of that mattered. He just wanted her. He wanted her even after he knew she’d cheated on him. Hell, he wanted her now.

  He walked over to her and whispered, “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re looking kind of rough, Joe,” she said, then reached up and ran a soft hand over his unshaven face. “Rough, but sexy.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I bought you the . . . you know. We didn’t think it would be smart for Danny to bring it, not with his record. Anyway, I gave it to the guy at the desk but decided to hang around for a while to see you.”

  So his idiot cousin had told his idiot ex-wife everything. Goddamnit.

  “Marie, you have to get out of here. You and Danny have no idea what I’m involved in, and you’re putting your lives in danger by helping me. Now you need to leave and just hope than nobody tailed you here. And if anybody asks you about me, you have to say you haven’t seen me.”

  “I thought maybe we could just have one drink. You know, catch up a bit.”

  “Marie, you’re not listening to me. You can’t be seen with me. It’s too dangerous.” Then he took her hands—and when he touched her it was as if an electric current ran through his body. “I really appreciate you and Danny helping me but you have to go. Now.”

  “Okay, Joe,” she said, giving him a look that said, I’ve missed you so. He knew the look was just part of her act, something designed to get his heart racing—or to be accurate, to get his heart to pump all the blood in his body to his dick. Then she stood on her tiptoes and gave him a soft kiss on the lips and turned and walked away and he followed her with his eyes. And she knew he was looking.

  He retrieved his two packages from the clerk at the front desk. One package—the one Marie had brought—was the size of a shoe box, wrapped in brown paper, and contained the gun and silencer that Danny was supposed to get for him. The five thousand dollars in cash and the cell phone Neil had sent were in a padded FedEx envelope. He put the box containing the gun into his new duffle bag, then opened the FedEx envelope and removed a thousand dollars in cash. He put the thousand in the front pocket of his jeans and then put the envelope containing the cell phone and the rest of the cash in his duffle bag and left the hotel. He’d never intended to stay at the St. Marks, mainly because Danny and Marie thought he was staying there. He didn’t trust Danny and Marie.

  He walked a mile to a Comfort Inn in the East Village, continually checking to see if he was being followed, and entered the hotel.

  “I called just a while ago,” he said to the woman at the front desk, “and was told you had some vacancies.” He actually had called the hotel’s central booking number and knew this to be true.

  “Yes, sir, we do have some rooms available.”

  “What’s the rate for your cheapest room? I don’t need anything fancy.”

  She told him and DeMarco pretended to be surprised. “Well, that seems kind of steep,” he said, “but okay. I need a room for at least three days, maybe longer, but I don’t know yet. But I have a problem.”

  “Oh?” the woman said—and she took stock of DeMarco’s somewhat grubby appearance.

  “My kid brother’s apartment building caught on fire last night and he’s in the hospital. Smoke inhalation.” DeMarco knew, thanks to the Times, that there actually had been two apartment building fires in Manhattan the previous night. He was also hoping the tragedy he’d invented would make the clerk feel sympathetic. “Anyway, I just found out about it this morning and caught the first flight I could get out of Vermont. I barely made the plane, and I didn’t have time to book a room in advance.” He figured an unshaven guy dressed in jeans and a baseball cap would be how most New Yorkers would picture folks from Vermont. “The thing is, right after I saw my brother at the hospital, I got robbed. This asshole—excuse my language—came up behind me when I get off the subway, right in broad daylight, and stuck a gun in my back.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” the clerk said, but looked more skeptical than sympathetic. Fuckin’ New Yorkers were skeptical of everything.

  “The thing is,” DeMarco said, “he got my wallet and everything in it: cash, my ID, my Visa card, and my ATM card. So I don’t have any credit cards or an ID. But fortunately, he didn’t take my bag and I always carry extra cash when I travel.”

  DeMarco pulled a wad out of his pocket and said, “That’s a thousand bucks. Enough to pay for a room for three days with money left over to use for a deposit on any room charges. I already called Visa to cancel my old card and they’re sending me a new one and my wife’s going to FedEx my passport to me so I’ll have ID to get back on the plane, but I won’t get either one of those things for a couple of days. So can I get a room here? I want to be someplace close to the hospital, and I can’t afford to spend an arm and a leg.”

  “I’ll need to check with my manager, sir.”

  DeMarco wondered when cash had become a bad thing.

  She walked away from the desk and through a small door located behind her. Two minutes later she came back and pushed a registration form toward him. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you, sir. And really, the crime rate in New York is much smaller than in most large cities. I hope the rest of your stay here will be better and that your brother recovers, of course.”

  “Thanks,” DeMarco said and filled out the registration form using the first name that popped into his head—Jack Williams. Now he had a room in the East Village—in other words, a base from which to operate—and the hotel didn’t have his real name.

  DeMarco went up to his room, plugged the charger into the phone Neil had sent him, and then looked at the gun. It was a matte black Heckler & Koch P30, 9mm semiautomatic. He screwed the silencer into the barrel—it fit but he had no idea how well it would suppress the noise of a gunshot. Included with the gun were two full magazines, each containing fifteen stubby bullets. All DeMarco needed was one bullet, maybe two—if he ended up needing thirty that would mean that something had gone terribly wrong.

  He dry-fired the weapon a couple of times, then ejected all the bullets from the magazines. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, he wiped each bullet and the entire gun to remove fingerprints, including any that might have been left by his cousin. His intent was to wear gloves every time he touched the pistol from this moment forward.

  He looked at his watch. It was 5 P.M. He slipped off his shoes and set the bedside alarm clock for six. He’d nap for an hour before the hunt began.

  28

  DeMarco’s plan for killing Brian Quinn was simple.

  He knew from Stan Dombroski that Quinn had a mistress named Pamela Weinman, and Quinn visited Weinman at her apartment in the East Village, which was directly across from a Greek restaurant. He’d called Dombroski the day before to get the name of the restaurant. DeMarco figured that Quinn would see Weinman at least once a week, and probably more often than that. He also knew from Dombroski that when Quinn met with his mistress, his security guys wouldn’t be with him. So his plan was to hang around Weinman’s apartment building every evening and wait for Quinn to show up, and when Quinn left the building, he was going to k
ill him.

  He knew that there would almost certainly be people on the street when he shot Quinn—in New York there were always people on the street—so he was going to shoot Quinn through his jacket with the silenced Heckler & Koch pistol. After he fired a shot—maybe two—he’d simply walk away, hoping passersby would focus on Quinn lying on the ground and not on him. If someone pointed at him or yelled that he was the shooter, then he’d run. As he was running he’d drop the gun and head for the nearest subway entrance or catch a passing cab, then he’d ride to New Jersey and catch a train back to D.C. Before he caught the train, if he had time, he’d buy a new set of clothes and throw away the ones he was wearing, which would most likely have gunshot residue on them.

  He also knew that after he killed Quinn he would be a suspect and the cops would come after him—and he decided that there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He wouldn’t have an alibi for the time when Quinn was killed and Quinn’s people—his security guys—would know that DeMarco had been in New York before the shooting. But if nobody saw his face clearly when he shot Quinn, and since he was staying in New York under a phony name and not using his credit cards, they might not be able to prove that he’d been in New York when Quinn was killed. So if nobody was able to ID him—and he’d be wearing a ball cap and his face would be unshaved and it would be after dark—and if the cops didn’t have any physical evidence that he’d killed Quinn—then maybe he’d be able to keep from getting convicted. Maybe.